David Tally, owner of Arizona’s Cactus Welding, discovered that the flexibility of the portable MIG system made it highly adaptable to a range of welding projects, and its adaptability proved advantageous to customers whose projects were completed faster.

Using a spool gun for welding aluminum is ideal, as the filler metal only has five inches to travel compared to 12 ft. (or more) through a gun liner. Tally points out that this replaces the necessity of an expensive push-pull system while MIG welding aluminum. Agan adds that the Spoolmate 100’s small profile (8 in. from tip to the back of the spool, 11.5 in. from top to bottom) helps him work into tighter areas that would be more difficult with a larger spool gun.

“I haven’t had it ‘birds nest’ on me once,” he reports. “There’s no room for error with this spool gun. And it’s so short. My older spool gun was tough to get into corners, and I’d have to fight it to get the right angle. The size of this works great,” according to Agan.

Tally also sees an important aspect to the spool gun’s ease-of-use: an easier way to train welders to work on aluminum.

“If you had to hire someone to do the work,” says Tally, “there are a lot of people that could do a very nice job on aluminum with the Passport Plus and a spool gun, versus using a TIG process. There are very few people you can just hire off the street that could do a good job on aluminum with TIG.”

Stainless savings, better productivity
Cactus Welding first used the Passport Plus to modify 14- and 16-ga. 304 stainless steel hinges and brackets on top of six separate candle-making vats. Tally initially bid the work thinking of it as a TIG job, and planned to spend two days at the facility. While he has a portable TIG welder, he saw an opportunity to test the Passport Plus’ stainless capabilities on this job. The result: his team finished the job in less than a day. Tally attributed the increased productivity to the speed and ease-of-use of the MIG process combined with the portability of the welder.

“If we had done TIG on the entire project it would have taken much longer,” he says. “And, in this situation, where we had to hold the hinges in place, you’re kind of missing a hand when you’re doing fit-up with TIG (whether you’re using foot or hand controls). Having a portable MIG machine here made a big difference in simplifying that project.”

On another recent job Tally was called in to a restaurant to repair various pieces of stainless steel equipment. The Passport Plus trimmed what would have been a four-hour job into two hours.

“We had never done stainless steel MIG welding for this customer,” says Tally, “but everything he brought me I was able to do with the Passport Plus. There were drain pans he wanted to add steel to: They hacked a big hole out of it that was a half-inch bigger than the fittings, so we filled that in.”

Another repair involved re-attaching a handle to a large freezer unit. Not only did the portability of the Passport Plus make it easy for Tally to get to the freezer and position himself for the weld, but the ability to weld it faster than TIG, with less heat, also provided a key process benefit.

“There is insulation on the other side,” says Tally, “and when you weld something like that with TIG, by the time you get your puddle hot enough, it blows out because the insulation inside is outgassing, and it makes a mess. With MIG you can just zap it in there.”

Another benefit that the Passport Plus provides is inductance control, especially on stainless steel. The Passport Plus allows the operator to increase inductance for a softer arc or reduce inductance for a stiffer arc. Stainless steel is notoriously difficult to “wet-out” and, without increased inductance, is prone to lay a “ropey” weld. Increased inductance improves puddle fluidity on stainless steel and ensures proper penetration and aesthetics.

Proven portability
One of the greatest examples of the Passport Plus’ portability is the work Cactus Welding does for UPS. In addition to standard repair and mechanical work, the company also installs 1-1/2-in. square tube handrails high above the belts and workings of the plant floor at UPS’ package handling facility in Phoenix. This often requires the welders to climb up 18-in. wide stairwells, 30 ft. above the ground, and to find access to power in inconvenient locations.